


The Doctor Regenerates

by EliseJoshuaBeth



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Post Regeneration, Regeneration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 12:12:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2109465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EliseJoshuaBeth/pseuds/EliseJoshuaBeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The missing aftermath of the regeneration of the War Doctor into the Ninth Doctor and to fill the gap between the Day of the Doctor and Rose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Doctor Regenerates

The glow left his body and the Doctor felt the new personality take over his body. It was hard to explain regeneration to someone who had never experienced it. The main things stayed the same – he was still caring, clever, slightly rebellious. Still The Doctor. Always eager to run. It was the little things that changed, but they were the things that made him who he was in each incarnation. The attitude, the mannerisms, hell, even his tastes would change. The 4th incarnation and his passion for jellybabies for instance. The physical transformation always took some getting used to as well. He had to be careful else he’d find himself tripping over stairs, unused to the length of his legs. That was one reason he liked changing the desktop on the TARDIS. It meant he and she could get used to each other’s new bodies together. 

A memory stirred. Desktop. He hadn’t liked it? But when in the Time War had he had chance to talk about TARDIS desktops?! The memory slipped away, elusive.

The Doctor’s fingers tingled. He paused in the exploration of his new form. That tingle usually meant that something was off in his time line. It didn’t happen very often. Being a Time Lord it was usually him messing with other people’s timelines. Maybe the Time Lords had been fiddling.

He gasped and bent double as if punched in the stomach. Recent memories often disappeared initially during a regeneration. It couldn’t have been the Time Lords. He’d killed all of them.

The Doctor sank to the floor of the TARDIS, running his hands over his buzz cut. Oh. That was new. Seemed to have lost the facial hair too. In fact his face seemed a lot younger than the last one.

The Time War. All his people and the Daleks – gone. By his hand. He’d had no choice. They would have destroyed reality itself if he hadn’t used the Moment. What else could he have done? But now Gallifrey was no more. He would never again walk on her red grass.

The Doctor curled up into a ball and sobbed. How long he stayed like that he wasn’t sure. He was disturbed by the TARDIs beeping. It wasn’t her usual beep. It was strangely calming. He stood up and put a hand on her console. The TARDIS beeped again and it almost sounded like a question. His face set, his mouth grim. “‘I’m OK” he said, half to his machine, half to himself. “Where we going this time girl?”

The TARDIS was in flight. He must have set her going when he boarded her, before regenerating. The TARDIS display was blank, though. “I trust you know what you’re doing,” the Doctor said. “Hold on. I’ve got an accent. I don’t mean a random accent but a specific Earth accent. Where’s that come from? That will take some getting used to!”

The Doctor stepped away from the console and started walking down a corridor. He turned into a door at random. He looked inside and, despite himself, smiled.

“You’re right old girl. I do need a change. These clothes are…stained.”

The room resembled an Earth clothes shop. He wandered round the racks trying to find the right clothes but his heart wasn’t in it. His fingers ran over some of the more flamboyant outfits, four's scarf, five's ridiculous cricket outfit, six's awful technicolour coat. The last Time Lord shuddered. Nothing like this for the ninth incarnation. Ok, technically the previous version of himself was the ninth, but that man had committed mass genocide. There was no way he deserved the name Doctor. No, he would lock that regeneration away – wipe out all reference in the TARDIS database. He had spent all his time in that regeneration in the Time War and everything of that was destroyed or time locked. No, nothing of the ‘War Doctor’ would remain.

So, something simple, something that would suit his sombre mood. His hand paused over a double breasted leather jacket. Yes, that was more the thing. He grabbed a dark t-shirt and black trousers almost at random. Strong black boots completed the outfit and he went off to get changed.

__________________

The Doctor walked back into the control room of the TARDIS. She had changed too, and seemed to reflect his mood with an almost Gothic appearance.

Earth. That’s where he would go. It had long been a home from home for him. He’d certainly spent a lot of time there, especially after the Time Lords had banished him there. He was fond of it. He checked the TARDIS console. The displays were back up. He smiled. She always knew where he needed to be. The coordinates were set for January 10th 1912, Liverpool, England, Earth.  
__________________

The Doctor walked back into the TARDIS and sighed. He couldn’t always change history, he couldn’t stop things like the Titanic sinking, or Krakatoa, but he could make a difference to individuals. The families he had saved gave him some measure of redemption. It would never negate committing genocide but it helped ease some of the guilt. 

The last of the Time Lords flipped a switch on the console. “Where next, old girl?” The console beeped and something flashed across the screen.

“Fantastic!” said the Doctor as a smile spread from ear to ear. It was a while since he’d come across something like this. He set the coordinates for London, England, March 4th 2005!

__________________

The Doctor tracked down the signal to a department store. He hid himself in a janitors room and waited for the shop to close. Unfortunately the janitor seemed to have already met the Autons. Oh well, nothing he could do about that now. He couldn’t save everyone.

He heard a girl calling and looked out, then withdrew with a sigh. Stupid apes. She seemed to be wittering on about some lottery money. “Humans,” he thought to himself, disdainfully. “Money, that’s all they think about. Money and food, usually chips!” He sighed again. He’d have to get her out. He had to save as many as possible. That’s how he kept the promise he made when he chose the name Doctor.

The Doctor peered out again. Ah. The shop dummies had started to move. The human thought they were students messing around. Humans never could see what was happening in front of their eyes. Well, most of them. This one was blonde, young. A normal, everyday ape. But there was something about her. Something…familiar? He couldn’t place it and shrugged the feeling off. It was probably a genetic special anomaly. He had probably met her grandmother in a previous regeneration. No time to worry about that now. Time to move. The mannequin was about to kill the girl. He couldn’t take any more deaths on his conscience. The Doctor ran up to the girl and grabbed her hand.

“Run!”


End file.
